Out of the Shadows will be screened at New York’s Winter Antiques Show on January 24th:
Non-invasive technology such as x-ray fluorescence and 3D imaging can reveal these “worlds within a world” of art. Researchers can calculate how and when an artist first began working on their composition by tracing fingerprints, brushstrokes and analyzing different layers of paint pigments. These elements, once fully uncovered, sometimes reveal completely different works of art underneath the surface that were abandoned by these great artists and painted over. To help answer the question of why their works were abandoned, Out of the Shadows focuses on a group of scholars, the renowned Dr. Ernst Van De Wetering and Joris Dik who have recently been able to digitally restore lost images under existing masterpeices. The group’s attention is drawn to two paintings, in particular, that were once dismissed as being mere copies of Rembrandt and which have recently been attributed as authentic.